Fibre Grating Devices for Telecommunications Applications

Photosentivity occuring in germanium-doped silica [1] allows, through UV side holography [2], the simple and straightforward realization of permanent refractive index gratings in optical fibres. Low cost, low loss and very efficient all fibre filtering or multiplexing devices can therefore be realized, with extreme interest for future Transparent Optical Networks based on Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), including chirped grating Chromatic Dispersion Compensator allowing to cope with bit rate increase per channel.